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Simon Parry

Hong Kong banking executive Arne Lindman  lost his baby son, but saved the life of his six-year-old boy by making a raft out of debris as his family was washed to sea by the tsunami.

Mr Lindman, Asia-Pacific chief executive of ABN Amro Asset Management, was with wife Helen and children Alfred, six, Alice, five, and 15-month-old Alexander at the Golden Buddha Beach resort on  Phra Thong Island, Phang Nga, Thailand,  where they own a beach plot.

They were in the resort clubhouse  when it was pummelled by a succession of tsunami that brought  down the roof and destroyed  the building.

Mr Lindman, a Swede, and son Alfred both suffered head wounds as the ceiling fell  on them.

But as the sea carried them away, the father managed to save  his son from drowning by pushing him onto a makeshift raft of floating debris.

Alice was washed beneath the clubhouse but, according to witnesses, was saved by her Swedish nanny,  who dived  under the building and pulled  her to the surface.

Meanwhile, a woman friend who owned a beach home at the resort  held on to baby Alexander, but  the surging sea pulled him from  her grasp. Alexander's body had still not been found last week.

Mrs Lindman was washed away from her family and into the dense mangrove swamp at the side of the clubhouse, where seven other people died.

She believed she had lost her entire family until she was reunited with her husband and Albert - who were among the first to be taken by boat to a mainland hospital - on the evening of the same day.

Andrew Keith, who escaped from the mangroves with Mrs Lindman, was with her when the reunion took place.

'All the time we were at sea, she didn't talk about her family,' he said. 'When we got to dry land it was the first time she had mentioned them.

'She asked me if I had seen them and I said 'no'. She was incredibly stoic. But she was hugely, hugely distressed by it and just felt she had lost them all.

'When they were reunited at the hospital it was amazing. I just burst into tears. I saw Arne and Albert first because I was in a wheelchair and she was lying on a gurney and we were in the foyer in front of the entrance where cars and ambulances come in.

'This white van arrived and out of it walked Arne, and Alfred was screaming in the van and the minute Helen heard the screams she knew it was Alfred. Arne told her Alice was alive,  but that they had lost Alex.'

Mrs Lindman flew back to Sweden with her surviving son and daughter while Mr Lindman  stayed  in Thailand while the search for his son's body continued last week.

Mr Lindman took up his post in the autumn and planned to move his family  to Hong Kong  soon.



Family mourns loss of baby but counts blessings